Two fundraisers from the Staffordshire Sands support group ran the Edinburgh Marathon in May 2018, raising over £1,500 for Sands.

Kirsty Spittles and her friend, Fallon Llewellyn, achieved an impressive time of 4 hours and 21 minutes despite having never run a full marathon before.

Kirsty, who volunteers with Staffordshire Sands, said: “It’s been a bit of a journey. I’m especially proud of the six months of training that we did beforehand. On the day, I started off feeling ‘Why have I done this?’ By mile 18 I was thinking ‘Yes! I’ll sign up for another marathon.’ But by mile 20 I hit the wall, with lots of pain and I wasn’t sure. Now, looking back on it, it was an amazing experience.”

Kirsty ran in memory of her angel baby Blake, who was stillborn on 7 June 2013 and Fallon ran in memory of her friend’s little girl.

They were raising money for both Staffordshire Sands and national Sands. So far they have collected over £1,600 and, with more fundraising, hope to reach the £2,000 mark.

The group are raising funds for a memorial garden. A potential location has been found and the group are starting to make plans and a budget.

Photo: Fallon (left) and Kirsty (right) happy to be running the Edinburgh Marathon.

Photo credit: www.Marathon-Photos.com